ChildDemon
by lunartick
Summary: She followed him, but she didn't know why. Perhaps it was the surprise at discovering Death had sparkling blue eyes and the sweetest smile ever. Another Soujiro fic with an OC! RR!


**Hello people**! I'm back again. The last time I wrote **My Thoughts, My Words, My Darkness**, I got a really aggressive (or maybe just overly enthusiastic) review from a non-member demanding I prove my point by writing another one, so here it is. **Child-demon** can be considered a prequel to **My Thoughts, My Words, My Darkness**. You take it as you like it. Thanks to all the people who reviewed the first story anyway! Honestly, I am by nature a humour writer, so writing drama is like an experiment for me. Anyway, just read and enjoy!

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**Child-demon **

Perched on a tree like an eagle, she quietly surveyed the boy from afar. How remarkable… shocking, in fact, that he could still be called that. A boy. A child, and a what a beautiful one too. Very good looking… feminine, pretty, but definitely one who would drive the girls crazy. When he grows up, that is.

With her skills as a swordsman, she didn't have much to fear. Even during the Warring Period, she had been famous… but not famous enough to have been killed by the time peace came. Peace. Ha… that was really funny – only she was not laughing.

But she digressed. As she said, she didn't have much to fear. At first glance, she had taken in the boy, laughed, and wondered why they would send her to murder this young, innocent child. Fortunately she hadn't laughed loud enough to be heard. Fortunately, she had caught the… _boy_ on one of his assassinations.

Such amazing skill! She had sat numbly on the tree branch, fear freezing her limbs into stone as the child had… had… danced around them, steel flashing magnificently in the bright moonlight. The speed, the burst of power… all so graceful yet so deadly, like a dance of death. Within seconds, the bodyguards were dead and the foolish _prey_… foolish to have left his mansion (though she suspected it wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway)… had sat on the ground, pleading… pleading for mercy from the child. The child had laughed. It was such a beautiful sound – like water echoing within the deepest underground caverns – crystal clear yet muffled, thrilling yet cold.

"Shishio-sama has a message for you," he had announced in a beautiful lilting voice, and with the sweetest smile she had ever seen, "Listen carefully. Shishio-sama wants me to tell you that it was dumb of you to have agreed to loan your men to assassinate him. They failed miserably, as they would because they were, and still are weak. Do not be afraid, for death comes to everyone. They will die and so shall you. Farewell, dear sir, and thank you for providing entertainment for all of us. It had been thrilling hunting you down."

How the prey had wailed and screamed as the boy had walked up to him, still smiling the purest, most innocent smile of a cherub. Now, the killing had been slow. A slash here, a slash there – stab here twice and stab there thrice – never fatal… still he cut him there.

The silence after the gurgling had ended was almost a relief for her. Slowly, she released the breath she was holding and sank almost miserably into the shadows of the tree. The boy… heavens, just a _boy_! A child! He was a child only! Yet there he was, standing on the grassy field under the stunning white light of the moon, wiping his katana with a random piece of cloth, smiling at the scene of devastation around him.

Like it meant something to him.

The boy cocked his head like a dog listening for something, and she held her breath again. But the boy only smiled. A gentle smile – like the smile of a child who had just been offered the safe, warm haven of a mother's embrace. Then he had kept his sword and turned to walk away.

Despite herself, she followed. Fascination at the horror, intrigued by the beautiful, angelic features, she had followed, like a rat drawn to a trap. Some might say she would have regretted it, but for now, there was nothing she could do, for the demon had entranced her and there was no god that could save her from it.

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For days, she had trailed him, barely stopping to eat or rest. He hadn't returned to his hideout, wherever that was, but had stayed in town, wandering around aimlessly. It was almost like he was bored – almost, but she could tell he wasn't – not always at least. He did spend a rather entertaining afternoon watching an emaciated alley cat savage a rat before eating it. Not that the food did the cat any good, for after wandering away from its prey, it had walked right into the dagger of the beautiful child.

She hadn't understood why he had killed the cat. There seemed no joy in doing so, for he did not seem to relish torturing it. He had killed it like… it was his duty to do so. Maybe Shishio had instructed him to kill all the alley cats in Kyoto because they wouldn't bow to him. Ha… real funny… only alley cats weren't the only thing he took to killing. The present count including ten eagles, seven stray dogs, eight stray cats, two lizards, twenty spiders and five drunken pedophiles. He really was improving the population density of Kyoto. Look ma! That's five perverts down and a million more to go! He would probably consider her one. Hell, she was counting the number of prey he took!

Other then the killing, however, he did not do anything much other than to fulfill his needs. He ate, he bathed, he slept – period. There had been no women. Of course, he was only a child, but she had known boys as young as twelve going around looking for whores. Meiji Japan was not much better now than Japan during the Tokugawa period. Really. Despite the peace that is broken only by the occasional skirmishes that destroy whole villages. Really.

And why was she following him anyway? It made zero sense to her. Every single instinct within her told her to turn and run as far away from this monstrous angel as her legs could take her. Hell, her instincts were telling her to move to Shanghai if necessary! But she couldn't. She was obsessed with him, obsessed with the fact that Death came in the form of a boy with sparkling blue eyes and the sweetest smile.

There he was again, doing nothing but sitting at a table, contentedly munching on tempura. She sat in the rafters watching him eat. Chew, chew, chew, swallow. Pause for a drink of green tea. Chew, chew, chew swallow. Like a machine. Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows. She was losing it. Ha… funny again. To survive the war with her sanity intact, but to lose it to this… this… this…

_Thonk!_ Quick as a flash, another spider that had been perched over a trapped butterfly was pinned beneath his dagger. Twenty-one! Wow! A record! She watched him smile at the grateful waitress who batted her eyelashes in a rather unsubtle act of flirting. He nodded at something she said then returned to his food.

His eyes were hard and cold… like frozen pools of deep dark water.

He was going to kill again.

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He was on the road again, moving leisurely into one of the smaller towns at the outskirts of Kyoto. No use of his super god-like speed, just a plain stroll. He was in no hurry to get anywhere. He was merely avoiding the inconvenience he would face should the police link the mutilated body of the vixen waitress floating in the river to him. Not that he had much to fear. Not with his beautiful looks. No one would distrust his words. She had seen him lie. He was brilliant at it.

Like the devil.

And here she was, smiling sardonically at herself as she trailed him from behind, half amazed that he hadn't seemed to discover her presence yet. Maybe he didn't expect it. After all, what had he to fear? Demons existed because the gods cannot find them. No god would ever recognize this beautiful child as a demon.

Child-demon.

She sniggered. How apt. How absolutely perfect! She had found the perfect term to describe this demon with the cherub face. Look at the soft blue eyes! Look at the tender smile! A child, ma! He's a child with the fangs of hell! Let the child-demon come! Long live the child-demon! She sniggered again. Why, she did not know. It was not funny… never funny… but it was… true. She hadn't heard the truth for a very long time.

Then he was gone.

Startled, she jumped, staring at the spot where he once was. How had he done that? Had he noticed her? No, more importantly…

Where was her child-demon?

Heart pounding, she whipped her head around, desperately searching for some trace of where he had gone to. None. Where was he? Where was her beautiful child-demon? Her heart ached at the thought of never seeing the beautiful baby again. No more cherub smile, no more blood, no more death, no more child-demon.

"Where are you?" she wailed, and was startled to discover that she could still speak. "Where are you?"

"I am here."

She spun around, and he was there. Standing there, watching her, smiling… always smiling.

"Oh… good…" Relief flooded her heart and she smiled back tenderly at him, "That is good."

"Is it?" he smiled tenderly at her. "This is the first time I have heard someone sent to trail me cry out for me when I escape their notice."

"Oh… I wasn't sent…" she looked at him, puzzled.

"No? You are a kunoichi, aren't you? A female ninja sent to kill me."

"Kill you?" the confusion deepened. "Was I to do so?"

Now he was smiling at her, but in a slightly bemused manner. "Were you not supposed to do so?"

"Why would I kill you?" she asked, holding out her arms to touch him, "I mean… how could I kill you? It's impossible."

Again his head tilted in confusion, and yet he still smiled. "Why is it impossible?" he murmured, "Am I not human?"

"Oh no…" she paused, confused, "Human?"

But that was not important. They were inches from each other now, and that was what mattered. Smiling, she lifted her eyes to look into the deep ice pools of his.

"Why did you kill that man?"

"Shishio-sama ordered me to."

"And the animals?"

"Because they kill yet they are weak. I am strong, and thus I must defeat them."

"And the maid?"

"Because she wanted me even when she was so weak."

She smiled and closed her eyes, intoxicated by his closeness to her. "And me?"

Silence, and then the sound of a sword tearing through flesh.

"Because," the child-demon said slowly, "because you are weak, and I am strong."

"Is that all?" she whispered, clutching to him even as the blood seeped out from the fatal wounds, "Is it that simple?"

"And…" he smiled sweetly at her as he laid her gently on the ground, "because you confuse me."

She smiled at him, watching the world slowly darken around her.

"Why did you follow me, kunoichi, if not to kill me?"

"Because… you are my child-demon." A shudder ran through her body as she gasped in her last deep breath. Then the light of existence slowly faded away from her eyes.

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Soujiro made his way slowly through the jungle, his thoughts fixed firmly on the woman he had just killed. Child-demon, she had called him, like he was immortal. He did not know if he liked that term or not. It sounded strong, but… yet weak. Child-demon – like… He hesitated, as a lost memory came back to him. The fairytale picture of Death portrayed as a child. It was apt indeed.

That was how she saw him, he reflected, following him ever since he had killed the mercenaries. She saw him as Death come back as a child, and had seek him for Death when she felt her time was come. Her blood now covered his hands, and soaked through his shirt and his hakama. Somehow, it irked him.

Stopping at a stream, he stripped off the bloody garments and flung them into the bushes before scrubbing himself frantically. The water in the stream turned a faint pinkish tinge before dispersing again.

Crawling out of the water, he dried off and slipped on his extra suit. For a long time, he stood there, staring at the discarded clothes, thinking quietly. Then he shrugged and smiled and continued on his way.


End file.
